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Not wanting to be overly dramatic, but as someone who wasn't around in the sixties this feels like our moon landing!

• alaxsxaq 10y ago
  Not even close. Impressive nonetheless.
  • bjelkeman-again 10y ago
    It's going to lead to a manned Mars landing. The time will come.
  • mikeash 10y ago
    In a way it's even more important. Apollo was an amazing achievement, but it wasn't set up to be sustainable. Spending billions just to beat the Russians doesn't last. If you want to see more interesting space activity than a bunch of comsats, some probes, and the ISS, you need to make space a lot cheaper. That's been stagnant for a very long time, and what we saw today is the second step towards something that promises to cut the cost of space by an order or magnitude or more. We're finally seeing something that might make space something more like aviation, not just a bunch of national prestige projects with a handful of commercial uses. If people are living on Mars in 50 years (which looks more and more likely now) then it'll be because of this, far more so than the legacy of Apollo.
    • drjesusphd 10y ago
      Ok, I'll bite. What was the first?
      • xixixao 10y ago
        Landing first stage on land.
        • mikeash 10y ago
          Yes, that's what I meant. The first landing was a huge step, proving the whole crazy concept can work. This was another huge step, proving that the whole crazy concept can work out at sea, where it needs to happen most of the time.
• pjmorris 10y ago
  Not quite the moon landing... but I haven't felt this way since I watched the Apollo rockets lift off.